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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
How did you find your nanny?
With #2 on the way, there's no way we can afford daycare for 2. I'm the breadwinner and there's no way DH would be able to be a SAHD (it did it for awhile after DS was born...). I'm guessing that our best option would be a daytime nanny. I really don't want somebody living with us and family is still working, isn't convenient or is too far away. How did you find your nanny? How did it compare to daycare costs in your area? What about for 2 kids?
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Re: How did you find your nanny?
If it's a cost thing you are looking at I would expect a nanny to be more expensive. You're paying for the convenience and more personal care in your home, among a lot of other things.
In my area nannies make $12-15+ per hour plus benefits like pp said. Perhaps a small in-home day-care would be a better option?
I'm not sure where Morris County is in Jersey, but I'm in the Philly suburbs and we pay more for our nannies (they each do 2 days) than we would pay for daycare. We're paying for the convenience of someone coming to us and Ben being in his own home with all of his 'stuff'.
Although, you will have two in daycare, so it may actually be cheaper to go the nanny route. Or, an in-home daycare would probably be even less expensive.
And to answer your original question, our one 'nanny' is my sister and the other one we found on CraigsList. As long as you are smart about it (trust your gut, do a background check, check references, etc.), I think it can be a good resource for finding child care providers. We did word of mouth for months and months with no luck and then gave CL a try. I'm glad we did.
For us an experienced nanny is much more expensive. I pay $15 an hour and once I go back to work I will pay $20 for the 3 kids. I found her through my church, they have a job network.
Honestly your best bet might be a live in. That way you could cut salary to maybe $12 an hr.
We used sittercity.com and were really happy with it. On the website you can run background checks easily, and the fee to use the site is minimal. They also have a rate calculator for the average wage in your area. In our area there are several nanny referral services who screen candidates for you, but their fees are pretty high ($1500+ up to 10% of one year's salary) for what they do for you.
Our nanny watches just our son M-F 8:45-5:30. It costs about 33% more than the nicest/highest rated daycare in our area. We don't pay benefits (I don't think most people do - except maybe health insurance; you can typically find a basic plan for about $250-300/month if your nanny really wants one - not really a major expense compared to salary). We do offer paid time off.
Keep in mind that you will probably pay a full-time (40 hours) nanny a lower hourly wage than someone who hires a nanny for just a few hours/week. You are offering them a steady, reliable income, so they will most likely accept a lower per hour rate. I think you could definitely find a good nanny for less than two kids in a highly-rated daycare - especially if one of those kids is an infant. Also, keep in mind that you will get many other perks - don't have to pick up/drop off, kids can have their own schedule, don't have to remember to take stuff to daycare, and best of all - your children will get much more personalized attention. Good luck!